Hand-held devices which are also known as portable device, like mobile phones, tablets and others have become one of the most commonly used electronic devices worldwide. With the advancement in the technology especially mobile technology, there has been an enormous increase in the development of applications. The applications are frequently used by users in their daily lives. On one hand, the intelligence behind these applications has grown significantly making them very useful and valuable. On the other hand, the numbers of applications being used by the users are very high. The use of the applications typically requires the users to navigate a user interface, which may include virtual push buttons, icons as well as a display. The contents may not be displayed in the application based on the users' orientation and the usage of the hands. In such cases, the users find it difficult to view the information on the hand-held device and also, the users may face physical pain and other inconvenience.
In one of the existing techniques, efficiency of the hand-held device is improved by orienting the displays so that the user can see the content upright and use the hand-held device comfortably. However, since these hand-held devices are designed to be used in both portrait and landscape mode, it becomes difficult to identify which mode and User Interface (UI) layout is best suited for the users. In the existing technique, usage efficiency of the hand-held device is provided by using the device's accelerometer for setting the orientation. However, this is based on the assumption that the user is always upright while using the device and it fails when the user is lying horizontally and using the device.
In another existing technique, to identify the orientation of the device, face orientation is detected by using the camera present on the device. But, in this case, some of the devices may not have a user facing camera and if the user facing camera is present, it is possible that the user's face may be occluded. In addition to this, the users may not wish their faces to be imaged always due to privacy reasons. Yet another existing technique makes use of the proximity sensors present in the device to determine the location of a touch made by the users on the hand-held device. But the proximity sensors fail to identify which hand is being used, type of keyboard layout used etc. Thus, there is a need for a more reliable system in order to improve the application ergonomics in a hand-held device used by the users.